The Scottish Environment Protect Agency (SEPA) is reviewing the national flood risk assessment, and there is one change which affects parts of Portlethen.
SEPA’s proposals say Portlethen is being proposed as “a new Potentially Vulnerable Area (PVA) due to the risk of river and surface water flooding to homes and businesses. A relatively small number of properties suffered from flooding in the past. However, the potential for widespread flooding needs to be looked at in detail.”
Flooding has been reported in 2000, 2006, 2012, 2013 and 2015.
New areas are being added to the assessment because of an improved understanding of risk or because of future risk due to climate change.
Scottish Ministers will formally designate the PVAs and publish the outcome in December.
Insurance companies use such information when calculating risk.
You can read more by going to Item 12, page 461 on the following link: http://committees.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/committees.aspx
Certainly both the properties in Alder Drive and the fields adjacent to the Burn O’Daff suffered flooding in those years – in some cases quite catastrophically. When Chapelton proposed an underpass within those aforementioned flooded fields, I wrote to planning outlining my concerns. I was personally stunned that the flood risk assessment for the proposed underpass linking Bruntland Road to Chapelton of Elsick indicated that the area was not considered at risk of flooding by independent engineers and SEPA, despite the fields having been under a significant depth of water over a fairly substantial area. It will be interesting to see the exact outline of the PVA of flooding in Portlethen and surrounding areas come December. I wonder, will it retrospectively affect planning permissions?
Thanks for your comments, Anne, You raise some interesting points.